Page 24 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Thank you, Douglas.” I feel absurdly shy saying his name. “That’s helpful.”
Isaac runs his hand over his steel-gray hair to smooth it back. “What exactly is your remit here?”
“Well, as I said, Donovan has plans to sell the house, and he mentioned that everyone who comes over the threshold has been…how can I put this delicately? Terrified out of their wits by you guys?”
“I’m not terrified,” Artie pipesup.
Douglas reaches out and picks up a book from the coffee table and chucks it at Artie, who jumps back into the sofa and covers his face with his arms as Marina’s hand shoots out and snatches the hardback in midair.
She narrows her eyes in the general direction the book came from.
“Play nice, ghouls, or I’ll fetch the ghost vacuum out of the van and suck you all up.”
Artie sits back up and takes the book from Marina, glancing down at the cover. “I read this at school. I didn’t like it.” He places the book on the coffee table. “I like it even less now.”
I hide my smile as he resumes his pose with his notebook and pen and looks at me, ready.
There’s something about his cheerful, matter-of-fact delivery of lines that I very much enjoy; he has a natural, unassuming comedy about him that you could easily overlook.
“So, getting back to the matter at hand,” I say. “Donovan Scarborough is understandably concerned that he’s going to lose his buyers for the house if we can’t get to the bottom of why you’re all still held here.”
“Well, I was murdered here,” Douglas chips in. “I think that gives me rights.”
“Not by me,” Isaac snaps. “And I’m not leaving until someone proves it.”
It’s slowly becoming clearer to me what’s going on. There’s a whole load of unfinished business here. I look toward Lloyd, even though I now have a fair idea of why he’s still here.
“And you, Lloyd? Why are you still tethered to the house?”
“Lord only knows,” he says, curling his lip. “I never liked the ruddy place anyway, millstone around my neck. Bloody unfortunate to have had my heart attack right there, looking out of the French doors. I was dead before anyone even noticed. Knew I’d died for sure when these two showed up like the world’s worst reception committee.”
Isaac folds his arm across his chest and huffs. “No way you’re leaving until the truth comes out.”
“And you died when?” I ask, tucking Isaac’s statement away to think more deeply about later.
“August 1971.”
I relay the date to Artie as I do the math. Wow. Lloyd died fifty-four years ago and he was the last of the brothers to go. That’s a heck of a while to be stuck together like this. No wonder they’re all so testy.
“And you three have been here ever since?”
“As I said, the three musketeers.”
I bite my lip at Douglas’s glib words. “Except it’s hardly ‘all for one and one for all’ if one of them murders you, is it?”
He grins, outwitted, and looks as if he’s about to say something equally pithy, but before he can he freezes, eyeing the doorway. Within a couple of seconds all three ghosts disappear into thin air, leaving us alone in their sitting room.
“Is this a private séance or can anyone join in?”
The fact that Marina and Artie both swivel at the sound of a new voice in the room assures me that it’s a living, breathing human rather than yet another of Scarborough House’s ghostly inhabitants. I groan, and if I was given to stamping my foot in temper, I’d do it right now, because it’s not just any human who’s walked in unannounced. It’s Fletcher goddamn Gunn.
Chapter
Seven
“What the hell are you doing here? This is private property,” I say, slamming my hands down on my hips.
He gestures behind him nonchalantly. “Side gate was open.”
